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Bond bombshell

I’ll admit it: I love Monica Bellucci, one of the most gorgeous film actresses of the last few decades and, given the right role and director — allow me to recommend Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Malena,” for instance — a very good actress.

And so I was glad to see that she’s been chosen to co-star with Daniel Craig in the upcoming James Bond movie “Spectre.” Seems like a great casting decision: She can do sexy, yes, but also smart, tough, vulnerable and whatever other “colors” the typical Craig 007 movie might require.

But somewhere along the line, the story quickly morphed into, “50-year-old actress to play Bond girl.”

OK. I guess it is remarkable on the face of it that someone older than her 20s would be cast, given the series’ history. In fact, Lea Seydoux — whom you may recognize from “Blue Is the Warmest Color,” “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” or “Midnight in Paris” (and who’ll be 30 by the time “Spectre” is released) — also has a role.

But the age-old double standard is at work here. Craig, after all, will be 47 on March 2, so it’s entirely age-appropriate for him to be romancing Bellucci, and it’s a laudable casting decision.

And hey, I understand we’re talking James Bond movies here, a cycle of films founded on a sexist definition of (younger) women. It’s entertainment, and it’s an apparently foolproof formula that has raked in billions of dollars. I don’t expect them to cast Meryl Streep.

But at some point, you’d think the rules that somehow made it OK for ingenues in film to pretend to be endlessly and often unbelievably attracted to old men — whether Bing Crosby or Harrison Ford or John Wayne or Clint Eastwood — would be readjusted.

Not to mention the lack of gallantry that makes it OK for the focus on an actress to be her age, when it never, ever comes up in discussions about actors.

So let’s redirect the conversation and focus on her abilities. This kind of thing is getting old.